


The Pros and Cons of Craigslist

by SnitchesAndTalkers



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: College AU, Craigslist, Fluff, M/M, Public Transportation, Recreational Stalking, Secret Admirer, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 09:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13678704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnitchesAndTalkers/pseuds/SnitchesAndTalkers
Summary: All Patrick wants to do is spend his college commute laughing at the romantic misfortune of others. What he doesn’t want is to be wooed by a stranger with a taste for dramatic prose and an aversion to punctuation. He’d just prefer it if he could enjoy his danish in peace. Really, is that too much to ask?Apparently so. Valentine’s is for losers anyway.





	The Pros and Cons of Craigslist

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, class of 2018, raise your hand if you remember Craigslist?
> 
> Raise your hand if you remember Missed Connections?
> 
> Raise your hand if you remember that Pete is and always was a creep?
> 
> Way back LiveJournal references are engaged - let's do this!
> 
> Huge thanks to the_chaotic_panda for her ever wonderful beta services.

Romance and fairytales are intrinsically linked.

 

The reason, Patrick supposes, that the two go hand in hand is because both are believable only to small children and idiots. The crushing disappointment of reality seems to slide into place along with the hormones kicking in right around puberty. Romance is dead, that’s for sure, and Patrick isn’t a strong enough believer to go about resuscitating it.

 

Patrick Stump, 21-year-old Music major at the University of Chicago, is absolutely not a romantic.

 

The train platform at Kimball shivers with a collective intake of icy breath as the wind whips straight over the lake and down the back of coat collars and under cuffs. It’s what could be poetically referred to as _cold as balls_ , but Patrick’s never been much of a lyricist. He leans against the station wall, eyes idly scanning the curve of the track, waiting for the L to round it, sour with the smell of piss but bright with the promise of warmth and sensation returning to his frosted fingers. There’s an apricot danish tucked in his pocket - well, not directly in his pocket, that would be weird, there’s a bag - a nice little reward for making his train.

 

Next year - Patrick has already decided - _he’s_ choosing where they’re going to live, and it won’t be based on the most geographically convenient location for Joe to roll from his bed and crawl to his classes.

 

The platform crowds a little as the clock – glowing neon bright over their heads – flicks to 7:40. Three minutes until show time.

 

Patrick hoists his backpack a little higher onto his shoulder, his stalwart shield as commuters jostle for position like cattle. And yeah, it’s kind of busy, but not busy enough to warrant the sharp jar of a shoulder into his, the flash of eyes like honey over a grin like sunrise as someone mutters an apology like it doesn’t matter. Well, okay, it kind of _doesn’t_ matter, it was just a harmless bump of arms on a busy train platform. It’s not a big deal, though the eyes seem familiar and the smile sparkles like it’s something he’s seen before.

 

The L, sliding to a halt with a swish and a whoosh, distracts him from staring after shoulders hunched under the stretch of a too-thin-for-the-weather hoodie, the curve of an ass to die for cupped by the tight clutch of girls’ jeans. His danish awaits.

 

All aboard and tucked into the corner of his favourite seat, claimed as a fort against the burning sting of electric overhead lights that glare just a little too brightly for eyes that haven’t blinked awake long enough to deal with them, he pulls out his phone. Craigslist missed connections. His guilty pleasure, his self-indulgent pastime that makes the shake, rattle and roll of commuter hell just a little more bearable.

 

_You stole my cat, then my heart_ has a certain _je ne se quois_ that he finds close to irresistible, his thumb navigating the page to hover with delicious anticipation over the link. He withdraws his danish from his pocket, eyes on the screen as he fumbles through the cage of white paper, raising the sweet crisp of jam smeared pastry to his lips, mouth open in anticipation of the flood of sugary carbs.

 

_M4M 7:43 kimball to quincy – lonely hearts club seeks honorable mention_

 

Patrick pauses, danish close enough to encourage the warm flood of saliva over his tongue, eyes roving greedily over the carriage. Things just got _interesting_. Stolen cat is abandoned for now – this is big, this is _huge_ , an honest to God stalking playing out in real time on his train. He sends a silent thanks to any deity that might be listening for granting him this moment as his thumb alters course and sets sail for more interesting horizons.

 

_you: riding the 7:43 piss trolley from kimball to quincy. pretty eyes shining behind looking glass that says youre the fairest of them all. are they blue?_

_me: texting thumbs and a tangled tongue. always blue._

 

_but heres the thing. i love grand gestures, theyre sort of my trademark, so this is how its gonna be. its feb 6th and i need a valentine, lets see if seven messages can make him mine - weekends out, he’s a college commute. its poetry! maybe its bad, is there such a thing as bad poetry? sure there is. same time tomorrow?_

 

Well, whoever it is that wrote it has something personal against punctuation, that’s for sure. He glances around the carriage, eyeing each person clutching a phone, each pair of eyes held captive by the luminescent glow of pixelated entertainment. No one flickers, no one glances up. It’s a bold move that’s for sure, and Patrick’s eyes skitter over the guys sprawled across seats or hunched up tight as he sinks his teeth into pastry and sugar sweet jam.

No one moves an inch.

 

Patrick sighs and takes another bite of his danish, crumbs spilling into the soft nest of his scarf. It would have been fun to watch it play out like a terrible soap opera. Maybe tomorrow.

 

~*~

 

Look, it’s not that Patrick’s like, _overinvested_ in this whole thing but… Okay, he might have spent more than a couple hours the night before imagining the various ways this whole Craigslist thing might play out. Best-case scenario, he assumes, is that the innocent victim remains oblivious and never finds out about the creepy weirdo stalking them on the L.

That’s _totally_ not the scenario he _wants_ to see play out though, he wants drama, tears, maybe some beating of the chest, a little clothing torn in agonised drama on Kimball station platform. Romeo and Juliet for the YouTube generation. That would be _kick-ass_. He’s not a cruel man, he reassures himself, but this has comedy gold stamped all over it.

 

It’s not that he’s blind to the sentiment of the gesture, he’s just… well, a breakup he doesn’t want to think about followed by six months of the single life will do that to a guy. God, six months? Has it really been _half a year_ since he last got laid? Maybe he should be browsing casual encounters rather than missed connections.

 

He’s been checking Craigslist since he woke at 6:45, obsessively refreshing the missed connections and ignoring some promising options – _I’m sorry I bit your dick (taco bell bathroom)..._ uh, yes _please_ – in the hopes that something new will flash up. He sighs, irritated, a glance stolen at the platform clock, glowing numbers informing him a train is due any moment. Maybe the mystery shitty poet got bored after one day. Maybe a miracle occurred and he actually made that connection after all.

 

Still, there’s a pastry in his pocket and a doozy of a blowjob to read about so he doesn’t consider himself too hard done by as the train arrives and he slumps into his usual seat. There’s a flash of a striped hoodie caught bright in the corner of his eye, crimson and jet blurring to blend with battered seats and bored commuters as someone thumps their ass into the seat behind him.

 

_M4M 7:43 and your heartbroken heartbreaker_

 

Patrick loves it already, although he sort of wants to cringe himself inside out for the poor asshole on the receiving end. Oh, and the dipshit writing it.

 

_you: riding the seven-forty-three again & looking good in that scarf_

_me: eyes that hide behind lyrical disguise_

 

_seems we missed our connection again. soul of a poet, man! think outside the box. heres a list of things you need to like to be my boyfriend:_

  1. _cherry coke_
  2. _80s movies_
  3. _pbandj_
  4. _peach danishes_



 

Patrick almost inhales a chunk of his danish, eyes wide as Midwestern skies as he sputters and coughs, gaze raking the carriage like he can figure out who’s in on the joke as he suffocates on his breakfast. His eyes stream as clots of fruit and pastry stick in his throat and he wonders if this is it, if he’s going to die on the L, choking to death on a danish with a Craigslist missed connections page called up on his phone. There’s a horrible internet article about millennials just waiting to be written about him; Patrick Stump, number one in cracked dot com’s 5 Idiots (That Died Doing Something Ridiculous), he can _picture_ it as he wheezes and hacks.

 

The palm that lands directly between his shoulder blades is as unexpected as it is gratefully received, the wayward bite of danish firmly dislodged from its errant misadventure down his windpipe and his lungs flooding with beautiful, wondrous oxygen. He casts a glance over his shoulder through eyes blurred with tears of effort, accepting the press of an uncapped bottle of water into his hand. He takes a swig, washes away the last remnants of imminent death lingering on his tongue then glances up, the thank you hovering hesitantly on the tip of a tongue thickened with embarrassment.

 

His good Samaritan has gone, the seat behind him empty and just a retreating hoodie – beautifully bound shoulders striped with red and black cotton, hood up hiding hair and hands sunk deep into pockets – disappears down the carriage. They shudder to a stop at Fullerton, Patrick thinks the other guy gets off the train but can’t be sure.

 

Patrick leans back in his seat and eyes the half chewed danish on the carriage floor with accusatory disdain.

 

This was _not_ how he imagined this playing out.

 

~*~

 

It’s not funny.

 

Patrick tells Joe as much via the medium of a text message typed out in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS just so that Joe can understand the true depth of _not funny_ that they’re dealing with right now. Patrick has been telling Joe _all_ weekend that it’s not funny but Joe continues to laugh. Joe sends back a LOL, a ;) and a kiss. Patrick _hates_ Joe sometimes.

 

Look, it was absolutely goddamn hilarious when he thought this was happening to someone else. And don’t get Patrick wrong, it’s not that he just wanted to laugh at some faceless stranger embarrassing themselves on a corner of the internet that no one really reads. Okay, that last part isn’t strictly true since that’s sort of _exactly_ what he was doing but…

 

It’s _no longer_ funny.

 

It wouldn’t be _quite_ so bad if it wasn’t for that annoying, whiny, self-righteous little voice that whispers venomously from his subconscious, the one that points out it _has_ to be a joke. Or someone terrifying. Patrick eyes the man in the full-length leather trench coat sceptically from over the magazine he bought specifically to hide behind. _Please God, not him._

 

He probably should have bought something other than Cosmo but he panicked in the little concession stand and reached for the first thing his fingers closed around. He should be thankful he’s not taller, at least there was nothing… _spicy_ within his reach. Anyway, this is ridiculous, he’s not the kind of person that gets wooed via the medium of Craigslist ads on piss-soaked L trains at ass crack of dawn.

 

_Lots_ of people eat ~~apricot~~ peach danishes. They sell them right at the coffee shop on the way into the station and a literal _ass ton_ of people are wearing scarves because, _hello_ , it’s February in _Chicago_ and frostbite never looked good on anyone. He huffs into the warm wrap of polyblend wound with care around his neck and settles his headphones a little more snugly over his hat. Gloved hand groping into his pocket for his iPod, he cranks up the volume and turns his attention back to the magazine. Hey, he paid five bucks for it, might as well get his money’s worth.

 

He’s halfway through _How to Drive Him Wild this Valentine’s Day_ \- who knew there were quite so many terrifying-sounding ways to give the perfect hand job? - when someone squeezes past him. Irritatingly, there’s at least five feet of dead space flanking him that would grant them safe passage onto the platform without squeezing a hand to his hip and a crotch to his ass. He cocks his head to look, reprimand burning bitter-sharp on his tongue but there’s just a flash of a warm amber gaze, dark bangs and a sunlight-bright smile then the commuters close around him and Patrick is left staring at the back of some woman’s head.

 

On the train, he yanks out his phone, rollerball smooth under the press of his thumb and glove caught square between his teeth. It’s not him, he needs to remember that it’s _not him_. Still…

 

_M4M love on the brown line (what? i didn’t name it)_

 

Patrick sighs.

 

_you: spluttering declarations (or something else) from restless lips. were they for me? or just an ER visit waiting to happen?_

_me: hiding in striped sight with watchful eyes and shy smiles._

 

_they say love is blind and we are kept in the dark by sunrise smiles and flashes of something we dont quite see. intrigued yet? i see you scowl at your phone, see you look around like you get it but the connections still missed, man. red and black, red and black, wound and bound and curved and curled._

 

Okay, there’s no doubt about it, it has to be about him. A realisation doesn’t exactly imbue him with confidence as he huddles a little further into the collar of his jacket. If this is some kind of elaborate joke, then Patrick is going to punch the guilty party straight in the dick.

 

He frowns around the carriage, brows drawn low in furtive judgment - the kind of cute guy with the Northwestern sweatshirt? Maybe the nondescript-looking guy in the blue jacket, eyes roving restlessly between his phone and the carriage. Patrick takes a deep breath, locks his phone and stoically extracts the danish from his pocket.

 

Maybe if the asshole would stop speaking in riddles, Patrick might stand half a chance of figuring out who he is.

 

~*~

 

Patrick crashes through the doors of the train just as they begin to slide closed, chest heaving with the liquid fire of exertion borne from sprinting the half a mile from his apartment to the station. He braces his palms against his knees, head dropped and back uncomfortably damp with sweat under his jacket as he draws stuttered breaths into shuddering lungs.

 

He slides his glasses down the sticky-slick bridge of his nose as he stumbles to the seat he absolutely thinks of as _his._ His legs shake with the unfamiliarity of being asked to haul his out of shape ass halfway across town at anything in excess of a leisurely saunter, his chest burning with the effort and he considers the wisdom in taking a huff on the inhaler tucked into his backpack. Vision blurred and out of focus, it’s difficult to make out the features that accompany the Cheshire cat sparkle of a smile from the seat behind his. He returns it uncertainly as embarrassment adds a wonderful depth to the sweat-slick flush of his face. Okay, great, people are laughing at him. He should’ve just waited for the next train and missed his first class.

 

He drags the peak of his hat a little lower, bites his humiliation into his lower lip, teeth sinking soft into the give of tender flesh as he drags out his phone and thumbs to the page he’s sure will have the newest instalment of his own personal made-for-TV drama. Craigslist, sadly, does not disappoint him.

 

_M4M i choo-choo-choose you_

 

Simpsons reference? Okay, that’s… it’s pretty cool actually. Kind of clever bringing in the Valentine’s aspect _and_ trains. Patrick can work with this.

 

_you: cosmo tips and sinful hips. want to share with the rest of the class?_

_me: watching, waiting, hoping and praying you notice me. cant you see me?_

 

_shakespeare said it best when he said “my only love sprung from my only hate.” pretty boy with wide eyes conjured from commuter hell to taunt and tantalise. wont you see me? you and me are something else. we are the smile you dont consider, the touch you dont notice. we are what you dont grasp._

 

_ps: if you don’t get the title i might have to reconsider._

 

No. He’s a LiveJournal asshole and Patrick’s pretty sure he hates him. Whoever he is. Was the Cosmo thing necessary, like; is it a detail he had to bring up? Why the burning desire to mark Patrick out as the dude that reads fucking _Cosmo?_ His mom would be ashamed. He hopes Craigslist asshole’s mom would also be ashamed. What of, he’s not sure, but he hopes it anyway with every fibre of his angry, humiliated, deeply confused being.

 

He glares around the carriage, burning with the urge to hurl himself to his feet and demand that the reclusive Romeo reveal himself because yeah, Patrick knows Shakespeare, he passed ninth grade English, and he resents the implication that _he_ has to be Juliet. He doesn’t - stand and shout, that is - because he still retains a thread of dignity secreted somewhere about his person thank you very much. His gaze blazes bright with challenge as he holds the eyes of cute Northwestern guy until the dude’s lips curl in disdain, attention dropped back to the Gameboy in his hands. Okay, probably not him then.

 

“Fucking asshole,” Patrick hisses between gritted teeth, a breath of noise whisper-soft over the slick curve of his lips. He has no idea if he means Northwestern guy, the ass posting shit about him on Craigslist, or himself. Possibly all three.

 

He can’t be sure, he isn’t totally certain he hears anything at all in the beat of silence as _Eight Line Poem_ ends and _Life on Mars_ begins. It’s there in the hiss of empty air between tracks and the fizzing of blood boiling with self-righteous indignation that flares the beat of his pulse sharp and hot against his eardrums. No, he isn’t convinced he hears anything at all, certainly not enough to justify doing something sensible like flicking his head to look.

 

But he swears, in that moment of stillness, that he hears a delicate chuckle from the seat behind him.

 

~*~

 

Patrick is armed.

 

Well, Patrick is armed insomuch as he has muted his iPod, headphones carefully positioned but silent. Anymore childish giggling today and he will _know_ about it. And then he’ll kick some ass and take some names. Or politely ask them to stop. Or glare silently.

 

He’ll probably glare silently.

 

He fumbles for his phone and curses - a little louder than he intended - groping under the seat for the smooth curve of his Blackberry. He collides with silk-smooth skin instead, with a warm hand that pushes the phone forward into the questing grasp of his fingers. Long fingers, he notes absently, nicely shaped knuckles and no damp slick of sweat. Patrick has a bit of a thing for pretty hands.

 

“Thanks, man,” he tosses over his shoulder absently, bringing the handset back to the safety of his lap.

 

“No problem,” does the warm laugh from behind him sound familiar? It doesn’t matter, there are more pressing issues at hand.

 

It takes him longer than he’d like to make sense of the titles, stark against the snow-glow white page but then he sees it, leaping out at him with showy twists that call _pay attention to me_. He scowls, the line of his brow drawn down sharp as he bites viciously into his danish.

 

_M4M throwing a penny in the wishing well is hard when youre trying to miss the third rail_

 

He chews deliberately, swallows slowly and forces himself to click.

 

_you: electric gaze that fires fury. headphones a shield._

_me: smiling. laughing. with not at. you’re adorable when you’re mad._

 

_i fall in love eight times a day. pretty eyes? shining smiles? the dude that gave me an extra pickle at mcdonalds? it’s easy come, easy go. but ive been exclusive with you for almost a week now, no more lunchtime love affairs - guess this means were going steady? i see you when you dont see me. catch me if you can, nameless heartbreaker, i love to see you gasping but maybe we can make it more interesting some other time… oh wait, there goes that connection again..._

 

He won’t react, he swears he won’t, nails scraping arches of irritation into the case of his phone as he grinds his teeth and squeezes his eyes closed until colours burst brightly vibrant across the crimson glow of his eyelids, head tipped forward, hidden in solitude behind the peak of his hat. It wouldn’t be so bad, he theorises, if his secret admirer would give him half a hope of figuring out who the hell they _are_. He lists what he knows with careful consideration and comes up with a brief profile.

 

First, whoever it is, is apparently a dude. This rules out, by the process of basic statistics, approximately fifty percent of the population of Chicago.

 

Second, they ride the same train as him every morning. Which means their timetables either match with startling precision or the guy is waiting on the platform for him. That makes his stomach lurch uncomfortably and his palms sweat. _So goddamn weird._

 

Third, they apparently ride the same _carriage_ as him, given they’ve seen him seize each opportunity to embarrass himself with both hands and an apparently eager heart.

 

He knows, it appears, the square root of dick about his coy Casanova. His Captain of Creep. God, he can rule out an illustrious career in law enforcement, he wouldn’t have a hope of catching a single crook. Eyes narrowed in nervous consideration, he darts another glance around the carriage. People check their phones, shuffle their feet and yawn into newspapers and magazines. No one glances his way.

 

But at Fullerton, as the train shudders to a halt and exchanges a flood of passengers shuffling with loaded backpacks towards DePaul for those eager to escape the icy February chill in a carriage scented sharp with Burger King, piss and sweat, Patrick swears he sees a flash of red and black tucked under the cowl of a hoodie. Just for a moment, then lost to the crowds, there’s a crystal-shine smile beamed right at him through city-grime glass.

 

Patrick blinks twice and shakes his head.

 

He’s starting to hallucinate.

 

~*~

 

The day before Valentine’s Day dawns bright and cold. Patrick lounges against the station wall twenty minutes earlier than he usually would, eyes sharply assessing each and every guy that makes his way onto the platform. He _will_ work out who this asshole is before the big day because God only knows what the big reveal will be otherwise.  He honestly has no idea why he hasn’t just started getting to the station later, or walking, or taking a different line.

 

The only answer is that he is an idiot, too.

 

No one has spared him so much as a glance as he sips his coffee with suspicious speculation fired from a mistrustful blue gaze. Today, Patrick will - metaphorically at least - cut a bitch if they mess with him.

 

If he’s being honest - which he doesn’t like to be, because it makes him feel like a loser - he’s still at least ninety-percent convinced that this is some kind of elaborate joke. He stands on the platform in his dorky beanie and feels like, at any second, the giggles will start and he’ll take his position as butt of the joke.

 

If it’s Joe he swears to God he’ll murder him dead, right then and there.

 

The station fills as his usual train rounds the corner and Patrick is no closer to figuring out who the hell it might be. His chest tingles with nervous anticipation, stomach crawling with butterflies as he casts a desperate glance up and down the platform. It’s the day before Valentine’s, surely - _surely_ \- if they were going to reveal themselves, now would be the time?

 

The train slides to a halt, the doors whisking back. Defiantly, Patrick steps into his usual carriage, takes his usual seat and cranks the volume a little higher on his iPod. He may not have answers, but he has Costello and Craigslist.

 

_M4M you can’t spell love without the “L”_

 

Patrick rolls his eyes with a long sigh that he’d like to think conveys just how done with this shit he now is.

 

_you: fumbled fingers fluttered to mine. warm hands, eyes that dont get it._

_me: smiling sharp through city smoke._

 

_weve smiled this week. weve spoken. weve even touched, just a hesitant brush of pretty hands that fumbled for a phone. the connection rolls by like commuter trains. click clack tracks and thud thump hearts through silent headphones and lips with not enough to say. maybe i can make sense with a kiss? in a city of millions youre the one that shines. im the poet on the street, the man with the words that don’t make sense. do you think you could make them? make me? today im a shadow, tomorrow the sun._

 

Patrick is honestly starting to question if he has a secret admirer or a stalker. It seems to be walking an incredibly fine line and he’s no longer sure which side this dude is standing on. The whole thing is getting a little concerning because he’s throwing the word _love_ around like party favours. He grits his teeth, lounges back into his chair as subtle as he can be, hopeful the glare-gleam of his glasses under electric light shrouds him in subterfuge as he stares around the carriage once more.

 

There’s nothing from the inhabitants, avoiding eye contact in that inner city public transport way, eyes focused sharp on phones and free newspapers, magazines and books. It takes him a while to realise he’s holding his breath, releasing it with a hiss like the doors as they sweep into Fullerton and the carriage empties. Something tells him he - whoever he is - gets off at this stop, that same half-remembered flash of crimson and jet all tangled with ivory-shine smiles.

 

Patrick huffs quietly and adjusts his collar. Something sharp and folded neatly grazes the tender skin at the back of his neck. A note tucked tight where the collar of his coat meets his shirt. He yanks it away like it burns him, staring down with fiery accusation at the origami arches of folded paper.

 

He unfolds it with trembling fingers, three words staring up at him in spidery sharpie scrawl.

 

_see you tomorrow?_

 

Okay.

 

Alright.

 

Maybe it isn’t Joe, after all.

 

~*~

 

Patrick snuggles down into the safety of his hoodie.

 

He hums with exhaustion, nervous flutters in his traitorous chest too spark-bright to allow him to sleep as he tossed and turned in the narrow confines of his twin bed. He may or may have devoted the sleepless hours to googling _Valentine’s Day serial killer Chicago_ but thankfully nothing sprang up.

 

Cap peak pulled shield-sharp low, shading eyes as he glances around like he doesn’t care, like he’s casual and calm. Craigslist refreshes in the palm of his hand though he knows there’s no point, stutter-stammer heart ruling fuzzed-floss head because _he_ doesn’t post this early, not until after the train doors close…

 

He blinks, pulse pounding hot in his ears as it catches his eye immediately, resplendent in its lack of capitalisation.

 

_M4M rose in my lapel, heart on my sleeve_

 

_you: confused for too long._

_me: finally fearless_

 

_youll know me today. crimson on my jacket and caught in my hair. light enough to float away but grounded. im yours if you want me._

 

The train is rattling closer, clattering down the track as the crowd heaves and moves in restless, undulating motion. Cold hands ready for the warmth of the heaters and crush of bodies, asses prepared to bounce to seats as Patrick’s eyes rove the platform frantically. When? The message doesn’t say _when,_ doesn’t declare _where._ Someone is moving towards him, someone tall and slim, black hair and espresso-deep eyes under the shade of a neon Snapback. Patrick’s heart flutter-flops in his chest, mouth dry because how can he talk to someone like _that._

 

“Hey,” there’s a twang of an accent to the voice of the stranger, hand sliding from the pocket of the purple hoodie that clashes perfectly with the ruby red of his pants. Patrick stutters as the train draws ever closer. Okay, this guy is pretty cute, not his usual type but he can work with it…

 

“Hi, I’m Pa - ” he squeaks a croak, close to incoherent, hand extended to shake because is _that_ the proper etiquette when greeting one’s stalker for the first time? Tall Guy shoves something into his extended hand - a copy of A Moveable Feast, _his copy_ of A Moveable Feast - he frowns down at it confused, blinks back up behind lenses that shield him from the worst of the embarrassment.

 

“You dropped this, man,” he informs him, pressing past before Patrick can combust of embarrassment right there on the platform. “Yo, Ryland! Wait up!”

 

No one else looks at him, his cheeks blazing with humiliation as the train rolls to a halt beside him. His carriage, his seat, his journey to Quincy awaits. He sends a final hesitant glance down the platform, waits for someone to present themselves because it’s sort of do or die right now and…

 

Okay, in spite of all of the less than charitable thoughts he’s had about whoever has been posting on Craigslist, insecurity still dictates that he’d like it to be genuine. He’d rather it wasn’t a hoax, a stupid prank or - oh, even worse - a complete misunderstanding on his part, the messages meant for some other dude riding the L each morning. Nothing happens, no grand gesture, no boom box held aloft and, rejection crawling around his edges - ridiculous, he knows it’s ridiculous, it was a stupid Craigslist missed connection - he climbs aboard and slips into his seat.

 

He cranks up the volume on his iPod, _Little Red Corvette_ pounding-painful against his eardrums, the roaring ring of it enough to calm the judder of his discordant heartbeat and arrhythmic respiration. He closes his eyes, tips his head back and ignores the curl of disappointment in his gut. Joe is going to laugh his fucking ass off.

 

The music isn’t enough to drown out the shout from the platform, some wordless cry that snaps his eyes wide, jerks his neck to the left as he watches someone hurl their way over the concrete as the doors begin to slide closed. There’s a flash of skin like caramel, glitter-gold eyes wide with furious determination and the flutter of bangs all tangled crimson and onyx. Red and black. Patrick shifts upright in his seat, jaw dropped, as the tiny ball of blazer-clad fury hurls his way across the platform and at the closing doors not three feet from him. Something whips wildly over the guy’s shoulder - a helium balloon? - a stumble tripping him into a stagger that Patrick is sure will have him greeting the closed doors with his face.

 

And yet.

 

Somehow he does it. He makes it, sliding between the doors as they close, yanking hard on the string of the balloon. It snaps, the colourful declaration of romantic intention left outside. Inside, the guy doubles over, pausing just as Patrick did, hands braced to his knees and his head dropped as he pants his exertion to the floor.

 

There’s a plastic rose tacked to the lapel of the blazer he wears over a Green Day shirt. Outside, the balloon floats away over the station. Patrick leans forward and squints and _thinks_ it might be emblazoned with the words _Be My Valentine._

 

Slowly, his eyes slide back to the guy currently suffering a respiratory arrest in the middle of the carriage. It seems like people are staring. He risks a glance around. Yup, they’re definitely staring. His ears are stinging, blush-burnt with embarrassment.

 

The guy - fucking _Craigslist_ guy - straightens slowly, _dramatically_ , honey-hazed eyes ringed thick with smudged kohl and shine-bright smile like a badge of honour. He’s fucking _gorgeous_ and Patrick is ham-handed and sticky-tongued as he blinks at him owlishly. He moves forward, Converse stepping a graceful gauntlet over stretched legs and abandoned bags and oh God, _everyone in Chicago is staring._

 

It takes Patrick longer than it should to realise the pretty dipshit’s lips are moving but the only thing he can hear is Prince crooning _I’m gonna try to tame your little red love machine_ and… no. Not appropriate, not right now. He shoves his headphones down around his neck in time to catch the end of what seems to be a heartfelt, if poorly delivered, speech.

 

“... so, then I gave up and stole this one from Denny’s and I bought you a balloon and everything but,” he makes a vague and mournfully morose hand gesture that Patrick supposes is intended to emulate helium-blown foil in flight, “it flew away.”

 

“I saw that,” Patrick nods slowly, a half-formed thought tripping from his tongue. “They - they were apricot.”

 

Craigslist guy blinks at him, confused.

 

“The danishes,” Patrick clarifies, sensible thought abandoning him entirely. “They - you said, like, you _wrote_ peach but - but they were… apricot.”

 

“Oh.”

 

The guys runs fidgeting fingertips through the artful brush and fall of his bangs, smooths a hand tautly tense, blessed with long fingers and well-shaped knuckles, over the placket of his blazer. He smiles, hopefully hesitant and bright with too much tooth framed with the plush perfection of lusciously curved lips. Then those eyes, blinking bold under the thick frame of dark lashes - long enough to brush the arch of his cheekbones as they flutter coquettishly - pitched somewhere between whisky and amber, oil-slick swirls like dancing firelight.

 

_You’re ridiculously pretty_ , Patrick’s brain provides in the expectant silence that hangs between them.

 

“Your writing is awful,” his mouth supplies helpfully.

 

“Thanks. This is for you,” the guy holds out the string solemnly, red ribbon twisted like vines to criss-cross honey-gold hands, eyes as seriously sombre as if he’s handing over the Holy Grail.

 

Patrick takes it. He’s not sure what else to do.

 

“I’m Pete, by the – _shit!”_ the dude - _Pete_ \- trips over a stray backpack strap and like the hero of a terrible romance movie, he crashes into Patrick’s lap. One thing that isn’t conveyed in terrible romance movies, Patrick notes with a yelp, is that heroes have angular hip bones and weigh a shit ton more than their skinny fit jeans might suggest. Pete scrabbles and jostles and digs elbows in to soft, sensitive places that make Patrick wince. He grinds that peach of an ass down over Patrick’s lap as he struggles - not particularly _valiantly_ , Patrick is forced to note - to get off of Patrick’s thighs. His babbling hitches up a notch as Patrick’s cheeks flood crimson for reasons not entirely tied to embarrassment, gritted teeth and pounding heart as Pete spews syllables across the carriage. “Whoa! Shit, uh… sorry… let - let me just… _Fuck,_ this is... I’ll, uh - just…”

 

Patrick does the only thing he can. He takes the only sane and sensible and _rational_ option available to him as the guy-from-Craigslist-named-Pete gives him an impromptu lap dance on the L from Kimball to Quincy.

 

Patrick kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I hope you enjoyed that! I'm ridiculously nervous about putting out something with no smut. I'll be in a corner over there, rocking and crying. Feedback always appreciated! I can be tempted out of my corner with comments, kudos and apricot danishes...
> 
> You can stop my Tumblr [here.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sn1tchesandtalkers)


End file.
